Following years of severe condemnation, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye has apologized for saying that any believer who does not pay tithes will not make heaven.
The highly revered cleric tendered his apology on Friday while delivering a message at the ongoing annual national youth convention at the RCCG Redemption City on Lagos – Ibadan Expressway.
He said: “I am going to be talking to everybody as soon as God permits me. I am going to apologize for making a mistake by saying that if you don’t pay tithe, you will not be making it to heaven. That is wrong. That is not in the Bible. What the Bible says is to make peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see God. What the Bible says is, to follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man will make heaven.
“It is possible to be right and wrong at the same time. I will prove it to you. For years, we taught that light travels in a straight line. Later we say it travels in waves.”
Adeboye, who further narrated his experience at one of the conventions of the ministry of Kenneth Hagin in Tulsa, United States, where a man made a promise to give more than all participants at the convention. He said all participants had given about 3.5 million dollars towards the building of the Rhema Bible College but the man promised he was going to give more than what everybody gave towards the project.
Adeboye said: “The man told me how he had started a business with 500 dollars and had told God if He blessed him, he would not ‘insult’ Him with 10 percent.
“Five years after the man started the business, he said he was making a turnover of 50 million dollars. And that was what inspired me also to give towards God’s work violently.
“If you want to dominate, you must know how to praise God violently. How did David become king? He was not the first in the family, he was not even recognised but he knew how to praise God, he did not do it gently but violently, with all his might.
“Unfortunately, most of us don’t appreciate that. When we are much younger in the Lord, we praise God freely. As we begin to grow in the Lord, our praise becomes gentle, more civilised, and more polite. David, even after he became king, danced so vigorously that even his wife mocked him.
“Your giving must be of the violent type. King Solomon gave thousands of burnt offerings to God and God said there would not be a king before or after him, and he would not fight a single war, because kings fight wars to retain their domain and the Bible records that he has peace all round.”
